


A Subtle Kind Of Murder

by Lula_Landry



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Assassination, Coercion, Cunnilingus, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dominant Kylo Ren, Drug Addiction, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Forbidden Love, Gangsters, Minor Finn/Rose Tico, Non-Linear Narrative, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Rey (Star Wars), References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lula_Landry/pseuds/Lula_Landry
Summary: Rey has a problem. Despite the best of intentions, she has become entangled with a gangster. And not just any Outer Rim Hutt spawn, but Kylo Ren himself, leader of the First Order. Lord Ren orchestrates his criminal empire from his palace on Coruscant, so powerful he is all but untouchable. He shouldn’t need Rey and yet he has come to depend upon her skills. She is his secret weapon, until the day Rey decides enough is enough. But is freedom worth its price when she has already lost her heart?“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process (s)he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 28
Kudos: 93





	1. The Road Less Travelled

“I told him, of course, I knew how to use a gun. We all know how to use blasters. I mean, it’s part of basic training. He was very cute though.” 

In the curtained cubicle next to Rey two girls about her age had their blaster rifles resting against the stall’s tent pole while they hurriedly tried on lingerie.

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Who? Poe? Come on, Paige, you and I both know he’s almost definitely Resistance.”

“Sure, Jannah, but did you sleep with him?”

“We made out. What time is it?”

“Our carrier arrives in fifteen minutes.”

Rey could hear the girls through the threadbare curtains strung up to create makeshift changing rooms. She checked the time on an electronic comm band. It was a gift, and still shiny in comparison to almost everything else she owned. The girls had DC-15A blaster carbines, fully automatic. Rey looked in the mirror but the blouse sat on her like a bustier, blood red and hugging her little breasts. Not her style at all. She checked the time again. Rey had an E-11 blaster, stolen from a drunken Imperial officer almost two years ago, or so she’d been told. She looked at the blouse, sighed and began taking it off. 

“Do you really want to screw a Resistance operative? I mean, if you get caught with Poe you could be accused of all sorts of things. Tensions are running high with the Emperor’s inability to control the rebels and the emergence of so many criminal gangs.”

“He’s pretty cute.” Rey could hear them changing, the heavy military boots pulled back on their feet, the blasters lifting from the ground. “Are you going to get that? Wait, what are you doing?”

“Just act natural,” the girl called Paige said.

Rey heard her stuffing something under her uniform. She watched through a crack in the curtain as the two girls left, helmets back on, completely anonymous in their stormtrooper gear. 

Rey glanced at the tarnished mirror again. Should she buy the blouse anyway? She couldn’t decide. She checked her comm band. It was almost time. She left the changing room and caught sight of the two young soldiers disappearing from Tatooine’s Mos Espa marketplace. 

She thought about crime, small white crime like stealing underwear, or bigger crimes like selling spice. Or killing a man. There was a scale for crime, but wasn’t it all transgression when it came right down to it? It was all a form of theft, whether you stole a garment or a coin… or a life.

The blaster was nestled patiently at the bottom of her leather satchel. Her bag used to contain tools for scavenging but those days were behind her. The Twi’lek salesgirl wouldn’t remember her. What was there to remember? Rey had scraped her hair back, eschewing her three buns for a simpler ponytail. Sweat darkened her chestnut red locks, dust all but covered her freckles, turning her tanned skin muddy. Her clothes were whole but roughspun, a shade of beige that melted into the desert landscape. The most important thing was not to draw attention and stay away from the few Imperial stormtroopers wandering the place. 

She walked to the busy food section where sentients of different races sat at rickety tables, keys and comm devices on tabletops, cigarras and hookah pipes, flimsy cups of caf and terrines of bantha meat and mushrooms. She waited. 

Presently the man she had come to see got up and made his way towards her. He passed her and she followed him to the painted sign that said _Fruits & Vegetables,_ down a passageway created by stalls crowded up against each other. He came out again holding a purple and white striped jogan fruit. She waited for him to pass.

“Excuse me,” she said at last, and he turned, looking at her without really seeing her, bemused by this scruffy little girl in shapeless clothes with an anxious face.

“Listen, _chuba,_ whatever you’re asking for I don’t have.” Then his eyes grew just a little bit wider when she took out the blaster and she shot him twice, quickly, in the face. 

_Do you see me now?_ she thought. 

Armitage Hux fell backwards, smearing blood and brain on the dirt floor. Someone would come along to clean it up. Someone as unremarkable as her. She took one more look to make sure, but she was already walking away, not hurrying, the blaster safely back in her satchel. 

“I think I’ll take this,” she told the blue-skinned Twi’lek girl back in the shop. She counted Rey’s credits as a commotion began behind her.

“Would you like a bag?”

“Thank you, yes.”

Rey took her shopping and left the market. There were sirens in the distance as the marshal arrived. 

It all began with Finn, FN-2187 to his ex colleagues in the Imperial army but always Finn to her. When they met, he’d been so scared and uncertain, a former child soldier taking his first tentative steps away from the monstrous organisation that turned him into a stormtrooper. He couldn’t do his job, he’d confessed to her. The very first time he was deployed he had frozen, unable to shoot the villagers he was ordered to kill. And so, he ran. Straight into Rey’s arms. 

She’d considered him romantically for a second until she realised what he needed was a mother, not a girlfriend. At first, Finn had been happy with her on Jakku, learning to scavenge and trade parts. He became good at it. On his better days Unkar Plutt, Niima Outpost’s very own junkboss, paid pretty well. That was Finn’s downfall. 

For the first time in his life he held credits in his hands. Initially, it was a bit of harmless gambling. The scavengers and traders organised games of sabacc around their tents, a way to relax and shoot the breeze. And then he befriended a group of young Rodian scavengers who introduced him to stim, the latest version of spice flooding the market. 

“I didn’t think you’d be here, Rey,” he said. 

Three years ago she had walked into her home in the hollowed out shell of a rusted Imperial Walker and there was her best friend, so thin now, his shirt ill-fitting and grey, standing in the middle of her work area rifling through her things. 

“Finn, I have nothing for you to take,” she said. Then she saw he was holding a blaster and said, “Not that, Finn. It’s not yours, nor is it mine. You’ll get into trouble trying to sell it.”

“But I need the credits,” he said with sudden savagery. His eyes were milky and he was shaking.

“Put it down.”

It was an old blaster rifle, salvaged from a Y-wing starship so long ago she’d forgotten she even had it.

“I could trade it,” Finn said, but she could see the fight was gone from him. 

She gave him two hundred credits, it was all she had, and he left. He crawled back two days later, leaving a tooth and a trail of blood on her bedroom floor. The money had not been enough. It would never be enough.

She hydrated a ration pack of food, trying to get him to eat as he lay shivering on a blanket on the ground.

“Who did this to you?” she asked.

“Leave it, Rey. It’s nothing.”

She touched his bruised ribs and he flinched. “This is nothing?” she said, but he did not reply. 

She sat down to polish newly scavenged parts, the smell of cleaning grease filling the room, normal and comforting. “Is it over?” she asked.

The answer, unspoken, was in his eyes.

“How much do you owe?”

“Does it matter?”

“This can’t go on, Finn.”

“What do you want me to do?” he said, sounding indifferent to her ears. 

“How much do you owe?” 

There was something new in her voice. Something colder and harder that he wasn’t used to. 

“Ten thousand,” he said softly.

Ten thousand credits. How could he owe so much money? How could he have so much money to lose? 

“What are you going to do?”

“I want a mug of caf,” he said, sullen.

That night she lay on her bed and listened to his breathing on the ground beside her. _You could rehydrate all the polystarch loaves in the galaxy,_ she thought, _but you can’t fix this. Where am I going to get ten thousand credits? How am I going to save him, my friend and brother, who is dying moment by moment from poison?_

She knew in the morning he would be gone and whatever valuables she still had. And a week or a year later, they’d find him dead and apologetic in a garbage heap or in the sand dunes. Somewhere, anywhere, but dead all the same.

“Who do you owe this money to?”

“Leave it, Rey.” He looked embarrassed that she’d ask.

“Who is it, Finn?”

At last, she extracted a name from him. Dopheld Mitaka, a human dealer who worked out of Ergel’s Bar in Cratertown.

She gathered her things and left her home while Finn still slept. Her rust orange speeder took her across the desert and toward Cratertown more quickly than she’d expected. Along the main streets, greengrocer’s produce lolled on tables and kowakian monkey lizards were being roasted on spits. 

She entered Ergel’s Bar and no one paid her any attention. Into a dark hallway and up a flight of mud steps to the first floor. She knocked on the only door.

“Come in.”

He was alone in the flat. It had expensive Wrodian carpets on the floor and a holo projector beaming the news in a three dimensional sphere in the centre of a jumble of chairs. Mitaka sat on a couch away from the window, facing the entrance to the room. He didn’t get up. 

He was nothing like what she’d expected, though she supposed the same could be said about her. He was young, maybe a few years older than Finn. He wore a black shirt and had pale, bony arms. He didn’t smile.

“Who are you?”

She stepped shakily into the room, her knees turned to water. “I am Rey from Niima Outpost, a friend of Finn’s. I want to talk—”

“Finn?” He laughed humourlessly. “Finn’s friend? Rey, I don’t know what you hope to achieve with this. If I were you, I’d let Finn speak for himself.”

“He’s my friend,” she said simply.

There was a short silence as he considered her. “What can you offer me?” He looked at her curiously. “You don’t seem any more able than Finn to shoulder his debt.”

“He’s my friend,” she repeated.

“He’s a junkie,” Mitaka replied, very matter of fact.

“But he’s still my friend.”

“Do you have my ten thousand credits?”

She shook her head slightly.

“Then what do you want, Rey from Niima Outpost?”

“Here,” she said. She took out the money and pushed it at him, fifteen hundred credits. It was all she could get for the computers she’d been keeping in her room, the electronic screens that had taught her several languages and even how to pilot a starfighter. It had been like selling her children. “I can pay you the rest when—”

Mitaka did not move. He tsked against his teeth. “It’s no use,” he said. “Finn will keep coming back to me and he’ll just owe more and more.”

“Then don’t sell him anymore spice.”

He sighed. “I have to eat.”

The money was still in her hand. She held it out like it could offer salvation. “Please,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

A tremble crawled down her spine. She reached beneath her cloak and pulled out a pendant. “Will you take this?”

He looked curious again. He reached for the trinket and examined it in the light. Then he laughed.

“This is worthless,” he said.

It was the only token she had from her parents. Mashra, the Aqualish scavenger who’d taught Rey all she knew, told her the pendant was made from real gold. Precious. She had advised Rey to hide it away, making sure no one else saw.

Mitaka threw the pendant in her face. It hit her and stung, falling to the carpet without a sound. “Tell Finn to get me my money,” he said dispassionately, “or next time it won’t just end in a beating.”

She bent down and picked up her pendant, slipping it back around her neck on a leather cord. Maybe it was the jewellery or maybe it was the threat to Finn. The sunlight rippled in the room and it was very quiet but for the murmur of patrons below their feet. She took out the old blaster. 

At that Mitaka moved quickly. He was reaching under the armchair when she shot him in the chest, once. She stood back and watched. He opened and closed his mouth several times. There was a hole in his cloak and blood poured out, soaking his shirt. He looked surprised. 

“This isn’t—” he said, but her fingers tightened on the trigger again. She put one, two bullets in him, one in the chest again and one in the head. She didn’t know what he was going to say. She realised she didn’t care.

She held the blaster and turned it over in her hands. She’d not used a gun since her time still enslaved to Unkar when he trained all his minions to shoot should the need arise. Fortunately, she’d had an uncanny knack for scavenging and bought her way out of indentured servitude quicker than most. 

She looked at Mitaka but Mitaka was dead. She noted the fact but didn’t feel anything about it. She put the gun away in her bag and left the flat. The human male bartender was wiping glasses with a questionable rag as she walked out.

She jumped back on her speeder and returned to the Walker. When she got home, Finn and the last of her scavenged goods were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know…  
> \- _Chuba_ is Huttese for ‘you’.


	2. Tell Yourself You Can Always Stop

A week later, Rey was dragging an armful of scavenged parts from her speeder bike to her workstation when a man appeared. He was older than her but not by much, dressed all in black from his boots to the scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. Even his hair was black, as thick as rope. He was a big man, towering head and shoulders above her. 

“Let me help you with that,” he said. He had a voice as deep as a nightwatcher worm’s burrow. 

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” she replied. As if he was there for anyone except her. She was a good fifteen minute ride from the outpost and had no neighbours.

The man said, “I insist.”

She looked behind him and saw a gleaming black starfighter that was so new she didn’t recognise the model. 

The man continued, “You could invite me inside for a chat or we can go in the ship, Rey.” He unravelled his scarf, revealing a unique face, an angular bone structure with a dominant nose and plush lips. “It’s your choice.”

Her heart lurched inside her chest, and if she was being completely honest it was from more than just fear. She didn’t say anything, waiting him out. He smiled, and despite everything, he had a nice smile. 

“What will it be?”

She let him take the scavenged parts and unlocked her entryway. He followed her inside, uncomplaining. The man put the heavy bag on her worktable and surveyed her little home. 

“It’s very nice,” he said conversationally. “Keep your hands where I can see them, please.”

“Who are you?” She’d casually opened a drawer in her kitchenette where she kept the knives. She closed it again. 

“Do you follow the holo news networks, Rey?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like you can avoid them.” Unkar had a holo projector set up just outside his concession stand, blaring the latest Imperial propaganda and reports about terrorist attacks. Everyone knew how to read in between the lines.

“Last week there was a news item- a small one, admittedly- about a man found dead in Cratertown.”

“I don’t think I saw it.” She was so tense her face had begun to ache. 

This man, he looked familiar though she had never met him before. Now that they were in her place, she noticed more things about him. His clothes were plain but expensive. His hands were big and broad, callused like a labourer’s. A rich man should have soft hands but his were clearly used often. He smelled like ripe meiloorun fruit, citrusy and fresh, like no one else she’d ever come across. 

She wondered how he’d found her. It must have been the bartender. 

“His name was Mitaka. He wasn’t anyone’s favourite person, but he worked for someone else.”

“Who was he working for?”

“Me.”

Sunlight spilled into the Walker through cracks in the hull. Rey took a deep breath. “So?”

“So I was wondering why anyone would wish Mitaka dead. What did he ever do to anyone? Beyond being a _sleemo_ nobody loved.”

“I’m sure someone loved him,” she said softly.

He looked at her keenly. “You have people that you love, don’t you, Rey?”

“Yes.”

The silence bore its own implications. 

“Who are you?” Rey asked again.

“My name is Kylo Ren.”

The name jolted her memory. This man’s face, surrounded by a dozen armoured guards, coming out of clubs and restaurants and grand halls, a variety of stick thin and scantily clad females glued to his side. The holo news cameras followed him avidly, hungrily. A correspondent’s silken tone stated blandly: “Kylo Ren is the suspected leader of the Council of the First Order, a criminal syndicate that controls the bulk of trafficking in illegal goods, piracy and slavery. Despite repeated accusations, he has always maintained his innocence, claiming the allegations are spurious…” 

“Oh.” She began to move around her work area, unloading newly scavenged pieces. 

He stood watching her. He had the ability to stand very still. “You’re an interesting woman, Rey.”

She bent over to lift a particularly heavy piece of pipe and he said, “Here, let me help you.” For a moment their fingers touched and she felt the contact like an electrical spark. She could smell him more clearly.

“Thank you.”

He moved away. “Finn owed me ten thousand credits.”

“Owed?” She dared not breath, understanding this creature in black was weighing her life in the balance.

“I’m willing to cancel the debt,” he said, “but of course you still owe me a life.” She looked at him directly then and he had amber eyes as cold as liquid cryo. “I have to ask you a question, Rey. What did you feel when you shot Mitaka three times?”

She had to think about it. “Nothing. Isn’t that strange? I didn’t feel anything at all.”

She didn’t know why she didn’t fly home after the Hux shooting. Instead, she took herself to Naboo. She walked along the shore of an enormous blue lake, its waters stretching all the way to the horizon. 

The holo news networks were broadcasting excitedly from a nearby shack about another gangland assassination in the escalating fight between the families. There were so many crime families it was hard to keep track of them, co-existing in a complex network of rivalries and cooperation that shifted and changed with old grievances and new alliances.

Freshwater spray flew in the air created by a brisk wind. Groups of women walked past, pushing their babies in hover prams and chatting. Rey followed the path, thinking of Hux’s face, his expression of condescension turned to surprise. All that time back when Kylo first found her she told him she felt nothing when she pressed the trigger, but that was a lie. There was a heightened sense of perspective, even an exhilaration, and she knew Kylo understood. He felt it too. It created a bond between them.

But now, she couldn’t help thinking about the look of vulnerability and disbelief in a person’s eyes when faced with death. No one ever thought they were going to die.

She followed the trail to a scrapyard, a neat, tidy looking place because everything in Naboo was neat and tidy. It was one of Kylo’s businesses and they had a working furnace where she could destroy her weapon if so needed. She didn’t do it now.

Something had changed and she didn’t know what.

She lifted a second thin, gleaming band from her satchel to her lips and called Finn. “Hey, it’s me.”

“Rey!” He sounded happy to hear her and his voice pinched her heart. “Are you coming for dinner tomorrow night?”

“I don’t think so.” She took a deep breath. “In fact, I was thinking—why don’t you and Rose go on a holiday?”

“Holiday? What? We don’t even have the money. Why would you—”

“I’ve been saving up for a wedding gift. Wouldn’t it be nice if you and Rose went away for a while? Hosnia Prime, maybe. There are some really pretty spots over there.” Rey had been several times with Kylo.

“That’s crazy. I can’t just leave work—”

“Please, think about it. I’ll see you guys soon.”

She hung up abruptly. She decided to do it now, before she regretted her actions. She took a boat across the lake where the Bank of the Core had a branch and withdrew all the money she had earned over the last few years. Then, she caught a water taxi back to her starship. 

“You-sa look so-so happy,” the Gungan cab driver said, apropos of nothing.

“Do I?” Rey asked. She looked at her reflection in a shiny surface, her clear hazel eyes and flushed, freckled cheeks. Was she happy? “I suppose I am.”

“That’s-a nice,” the driver said encouragingly.

She leaned back in her seat and caught sight of her reflection once more. She was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know…  
> \- _Sleemo_ is Huttese for ‘slimeball’.


	3. A Dwindling, Mercurial High

It was two months after Kylo Ren first saw Rey that the job came up. A debt must be paid after all.

She’d not seen Kylo in all that time. She hadn’t heard from Finn either and was becoming sick with worry. Then Finn called her on the comm band Kylo left with her. He was in a rehab clinic on Malian. He was vague on the details, but it appeared he’d been checked in by outside forces and assured her that everything was fine. It was the best he’d sounded in over a year. 

So when Kylo dropped by to see her again she wasn’t surprised. If anything, her debt to him had grown. She owed him two lives now- both Mitaka and Finn. 

Again, he came alone, this billionaire who was never seen without his retinue whenever a holo camera caught him after a gala or a night out. This time he was waiting inside the Walker. He was sprawled on her bed reading a holopad.

“Lord Ren,” she said awkwardly, her heart hammering to see a man on the mattress where she slept, and even more poignantly this particular male.

“Please, call me Kylo,” he said. He got up and helped her put away her salvage, courteously, and then he stood by the window where she kept her collection of spinebarrel plants, a tiny oasis of green in a brown and dusty climate. “How’s Finn?”

“Good,” she said simply.

“Listen, Rey, how would you like to do me a favour?”

“What sort of favour?” she asked, as if she had any choice in the matter. 

“Have dinner with me.”

“What?”

He laughed, slow and easy. “I know a good restaurant on Takodana. Just a brief flight off world.”

“I- I have nothing to wear.”

“I came prepared. What do you say?”

She said yes. 

This time he’d flown an Upsilon-class command shuttle, a huge, glittering bird with graceful wings on either side. Inside the ship was a guest room and attached fresher. Rey showered in a frosted cubicle, a feeling both sinful and amazing. That much water would have lasted her a week on Jakku.

Her dress was achingly pretty, a sleeveless white shift with a scooped neckline that revealed the tops of her breasts, the fabric covering her to the knees and hugging her slender form. New sandals accompanied it, made from thick blonde threads woven into thin ropes. She’d never before realised how tan she was, her skin glowing gold in the ship’s unforgiving lights. Her wet hair she brushed back into the usual three buns. 

Kylo said nothing when she appeared in the cockpit and took the co-pilot’s seat beside him. He merely stared and that was enough. There was a light in his amber gaze that made her feel… beautiful. How extraordinary to feel beautiful at last, all because a very bad man had noticed her.

They landed on Takodana and again that was a thrill, the cool air free of sand and dust, the sun shining but without the punishing burn one experienced in Jakku. The restaurant overlooked Nymeve lake and served fish. Rey was unused to such things and couldn’t tell if the food was good, though she enjoyed her meal. 

She found herself laughing as Kylo told jokes, when he told her stories about famous people he knew across the galaxy, politicians and holo network stars, or funny incidents from his childhood. It seemed his father was a smuggler, often entangled in sticky situations. His mother had died in childbirth. He was easy to talk to. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

The restaurant was near empty since it was early. As they were finishing tiny mugs of potent caf he reached for her hand under the table. His grip was dry and warm. He took her fingers in his and pushed them against the underside of the table. She felt something cold and hard attached to it. She didn’t flinch. Kylo nodded.

“A man is going to come in here in about five minutes,” he said. “A tall, dark man wearing a light blue cape. He runs all the spice on the planet and I need him out of the way.” She didn’t say anything and he asked, “Are you listening?”

“Yes.” She didn’t know why but her biggest emotion was disappointment- disappointment this wasn’t a real date, that this intriguing man wasn’t actually interested in her. 

“Good. I’ll be waiting in my ship. Don’t run. Do it quietly. He’ll have his boys with him but they won’t know you.”

His fingers left hers and he got up quickly. She saw him look at the Yuzzum proprietor and the being’s antennae quivered in fear. Then Kylo was gone. 

She sat there over the remains of her coffee and her hand under the table, touching the blaster’s alloy, tracing the straps that held it to the underside. Five minutes later, with a final piece of cream covered cake before her, a man came into the restaurant with two younger men behind him. He looked at her momentarily with cold, hard eyes but soon lost interest. They swept into the room and sat by a window, far from the door. She waited, watching. 

The older man undid his flamboyant cape, laying it over the back of an empty chair. He was quite handsome, respectable looking. Food and drink arrived as soon as they sat down. She remained there for a while, her mind curiously blank, before pulling the blaster free. It felt heavy. She checked it blindly, under the table, and put it into her bag. She got up at last and went to wait by the restrooms. Presently he came, as she knew he would, old men being somewhat predictable. 

He stopped when he saw her in the shadows, then smiled without warmth and said, “Are you lost, lady?”

Wasn’t that the question? “I think I am,” she confessed.

She took out the blaster, pressed it against his chest and shot him at close range. He didn’t even react until he fell back from the impact. She shot him again in the head—what Unkar used to call a confirmation kill. She couldn’t tell how loud it was. 

She exited at a normal pace and once outside glanced back. The younger men were still seated by the window and didn’t even look her way.

It made her smile even now. Males of the species paid her no attention and were therefore vulnerable.

Rey parked her speeder bike, locked it and walked up a driveway to Finn’s house. He was living with Rose now. She was a sweet girl, a former Resistance operative who’d given up on the cause when her sister turned. Truth was there were many who appreciated the order brought by the Empire. 

She knocked and Finn answered almost immediately, pulling her into a hug. He looked well. 

“What’s going on, Rey?” he asked, puzzled. 

She followed him inside and Rose was there, making caf in the kitchen. Rey gave her a hug too. “I’m not staying long,” she murmured.

“What’s going on?” Finn asked again.

Rey hesitated. “I’ve bought you tickets to Hosnia Prime for your upcoming wedding,” she said, not knowing how to explain. “It might be best if you go now. A holiday, just for a little while.”

“Why, are we in trouble?” Finn laughed. The idea was absurd. His bad times were behind him.

“No, I just… I thought you might like to see Hosnia.”

He and Rose exchanged a look, the way couples do. It made Rey feel at a loss. She and Kylo didn’t always speak either. A look was often all he needed to know what was on her mind. 

She pushed a slim envelope towards them. “Here, a little spending money.”

“What’s in the envelope—” Finn tore it open and exclaimed in horror, “Where did you get this, Rey?”

No one knew she was a very wealthy woman by now. Her lifestyle had changed little and she still rode the same speeder bike she’d built from scrap metal as a scavenger. “I told you, I saved up.”

“It’s too much!”

“I’m happy to spoil you guys, you know that.”

Rose looked concerned but didn’t speak. 

She turned quickly so they wouldn’t see her cry. Rey walked to the door and her friends followed, bewildered. 

“Are we in some kind of trouble?” Finn asked again.

She hugged him, holding tight. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Rey clambered onto her speeder and rode it into the endless desert, giving herself time to think. She was tired- tired of doing someone else’s work. There was only one way out and that way was death.

It had to be done right.

Rey the scavenger and Kylo Ren the mobster became lovers the night she killed the man in the restaurant on Takodana.

Later, while watching a holonews program, she found out the dead man’s name was Landonis Balthazat Calrissian, born on Cloud City, a smuggler who had become involved in drugs and prostitution while working for a crime syndicate known as Crimson Dawn. He also appeared to have had a hand in several executions to which no witnesses had ever come forward.

That evening, however, Rey simply walked away from the restaurant. The ramp to Kylo’s starship was open and she entered, joining him in the cockpit. They flew into the endless dark of the starlit galaxy, avoiding a wounded cluster of asteroids. A fat moon loomed in the distance. 

“Can you go on autopilot?” she asked, minutes or hours later. 

They were already close to the dusty orange ball that was Jakku. She watched as he set the starship to drift. Rey fumbled with her seatbelt. Why did she need a seatbelt? What did it protect her from? It didn’t stop a blaster rifle opening a hole in her chest. She found herself laughing. It was all so funny.

Kylo calmly reached over and helped with the belt. She took hold of his hands, looking into his eyes. She was suddenly furious, wanting to hit him. She launched herself at him, still in the pilot’s seat, and straddled his thighs. She leaned into him and kissed him on his provocative mouth. His flesh was warm. He was warm all over, big hands running down her body in that ridiculous dress. 

He peeled it off her as she continued to kiss him urgently. He smelled of citrus fruits and animal musk, he tasted of salt. They were tangled up hopelessly like teenagers. Somehow the seat was pushed back- it must have been him- and she fumbled with his britches. His fingers, impatient now, all but tore the clothes from her body. His mouth devoured her skin, her hands ran through his thick, silken hair. 

Later, much later, she nestled against him, her fingers stroking his impressive pectoral muscles like it was a pet. He was as hard as stone beneath his clothes, brawny and beautiful. She was soft like Bantha cream beside him. 

He kissed her gently and she sighed. The lonely lights of distant stars illuminated the darkness.


	4. Clandestine Meetings & Longing Stares

It had been a strange day, and when she finally got back from Finn’s place to her small flat she ran the shower and washed her hair for a long time. Maybe she could still take it back, still change course. Nothing was set.

And yet she had been set on this course, she realised, almost her whole life. She had been trained by Unkar to kill, but she’d told herself she would only pull the trigger for an ideal- an ideal she never truly believed in.

She didn’t want this life anymore. None of it.

Since that first time with Kylo, they had established a routine. The comm band she used with Rose and Finn and a handful of others was different to the one Kylo gave her. He never came to her again. They would meet every month, sometimes more, each time at a different place. He made her buy a starship so she could go off world at her convenience, and she made sure the ship she purchased was dilapidated and unassuming.

The second job he gave her was a woman. She never learned what the woman had done to bring this on herself. The death never even made the news beyond a footnote in one of the news reels about a corpse found, some six months later, almost perfectly preserved in the white salt flats of Crait. Rey remembered the woman’s pale, shocked face, her bright blue eyes and golden blonde hair. She had been very pretty and almost as tall as Kylo.

She stepped out of the shower and dried her hair and put on a robe. She felt calm, like it was all meant to be. She called him.

“I need to see you.”

Later, when it had all gone wrong and she was running for her life, holed up in a retreat centre on Cantonica- a place where the fabulously wealthy who inhabited the casino city of Canto Bight could pretend to be recovering from their varied addictions- she still didn’t regret anything she’d done.

Her plan depended on the same principle that had seen her work successfully in the intervening years since Takodana. That males fatally underestimate females. Even Kylo Ren.

And she wasn’t all wrong, she thought later.

They met in a bar at the Entertainment District on Coruscant at dusk. The place was relatively quiet, catering to an older clientele. There were candles on the table and it was dark. A droid played Quenk jazz through speakers in his midsection. 

Kylo was there when she arrived. He had a habit of always getting to a meeting early, so he wouldn’t be caught by surprise. Once she asked him why he always travelled alone when he came to see her, why he left behind his bodyguards, the ones who called themselves the Knights of Ren. He told her he didn’t need them, he could take care of himself. And even though she’d never seen him pull a blaster, she believed him.

Paranoia was a way of life for those like Kylo. His rivals employed a variety of violent perpetrators, Anzellan droidsmiths who created bombs and plasma charges, Gamorrean bodyguards with their sharpened tusks and tough green skins. They changed flyers and travel routes, kept safehouses and arrived to meetings as if they were part of a military parade. They always went armed, whether to the shops or to their temples, it made no difference. And yet none of them were afraid of a little girl with a blaster.

Kylo kissed her on the cheek like an old friend. In a way, that was what he’d become. He sat facing the door and she sat sideways, half looking at him and half at the exit. Habit. 

“Why did you call?” He was unhappy. “We shouldn’t meet so soon after a job. It puts you at risk.”

“I was scared. I thought I was being followed.”

He shifted in his seat and all his considerable attention was now on her. “By whom?”

“I thought it was that detective from Kijimi.”

“Zorii Bliss?”

“Yes.”

It had happened a year ago. She came home to find a woman in red and gold armour waiting for her. She thought the woman was one of Kylo’s staff, and it had stung to see someone so slim and graceful in his employ. Then she flashed her badge and asked to come inside. 

Rey let her in. What could she do? She made caf and the woman introduced herself as Detective Zorii Bliss of the Kijimi Central Unit. She placed a metal cube on her dining table and clicked a button. A holo slide of a dozen images glowed in the air. “Do you recognise this man?”

The photos showed Rey and Kylo together at a restaurant by the beach. After breakfast, as she recalled, he had bought her a tiny white bikini, her first one ever. 

“I don’t know who that is.”

Detective Bliss looked amused. “Are you in the habit of having meals with random strangers?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Listen to me, Rey,” she said, leaning forward, “I don’t want to waste your time or mine. What does Kylo Ren have on you?”

Rey felt nervous. 

“What does he want? I see your friend Finn was a spice addict—”

“Leave him out of this!”

Detective Bliss shrugged. “He has a history, but nothing recent. Is he in trouble again? Is that why you were with Ren?”

“I can’t,” Rey said, shaking her head. She never thought anyone would connect the dots between her and Kylo, though truth be told the detective didn’t seem to know much at all. 

She felt an overwhelming desire to talk to this female, to tell her everything… but she was just one woman.

“You look very comfortable with Ren, if you don’t mind me saying so.” The detective looked at her quizzically. “Are you romantically linked?” The she laughed and stood to her feet, the idea apparently ludicrous, for why would a scavenger from Jakku catch the eye of such a powerful man? “He’s dangerous, Rey. I hope you know what you’re doing.” She placed a contact card on the table. “Call me, day or night. Help me catch Ren and I’ll protect you.”

Rey almost choked on her caf. She escorted Detective Bliss to the door. The other woman had left the holo cube on her table and Rey stared at the pictures for a long time. She wasn’t sure what to feel about them. Kylo and her looked like a couple, happy and very much in love. Was it all a lie? She threw the cube and the detective’s card into the compacter.

Kylo shook his head, bringing her back to reality. “It wasn’t Bliss,” he assured her. “I have more people watching her than watching me. You did good.”

Rey exhaled, trying to ease her jitters. “Let’s go now.”

“Alright,” he agreed.

He left credits on the table. He’d been drinking crystalmead. There weren’t many people on the street- the markets had shut but the nightlife had not yet begun. She leaned into him, tasting his generous mouth. Her hand was in her satchel and she pulled out her blaster rifle.

“What are you—”

The blastershot went through his side and into a shop window, which exploded. Kylo pushed her with considerable force and she fell back on the ground. He’d always been gentle with her and his strength, though anticipated, was a shock. Her next shot took out a striped awning but missed Kylo. He reached for something, not a blaster, she’d checked his belt for that. He brought up a silver handle and ignited a crimson lightsaber, two lateral vents allowing more plasma to pour out the sides, creating a crossguard hilt.

Rey was momentarily stunned. What was Kylo doing with a lightsaber? It was similar to the weapon preferred by the Emperor’s right hand, Darth Vader, killed so many years ago by Luke Skywalker. 

She rushed him and grabbed the hand that held the hilt of the saber. Blood continued to pour out of his side and he stumbled. She shoved with all her might and the hissing red blade pressed into Kylo himself, carving up his clothes, and then she smelled burning flesh. He screamed, swinging his arm wide.

She rolled and felt the saber’s blade pass so close that it was like the brush of a wing. Or maybe she’d imagined the feeling. In the distance, she heard shouts for help. She lifted her head and saw Kylo, on the ground, blood and rage streaming across his face.

Rey lifted her blaster rifle. For a moment, their eyes met. Then she fired.


	5. And It Dies A Million Little Times

Rey had a bag full of credits in the back of the spacecraft, two blasters and a suitcase of clothes. 

She’d half walked, half ran from the scene of the crime. Kylo was down, his blood a dark pool around him. She couldn’t be sure if she got him. He’d deflected her shots with his lightsaber. He was very good with it, and suddenly his callused hands made more sense.

It hadn’t gone the way she’d planned. She threw the comm band he’d given her into a sewage drain. When she got to her ship, she turned on a holonews channel. “A human male identified as suspected crime family head Kylo Ren has been taken to hospital in critical condition…”

She rang Finn on her personal band and he answered. “Where are you?” Rey demanded. There was a chatter of noise.

“We’re just on our way to the shuttle transport,” he laughed. He sounded happy and she sighed with relief.

“Is that Rey?” she heard Rose in the background. “Thank you again for the tickets!”

“You’re welcome.” She wished them a safe trip and hung up. 

Her life depended on what happened next. She powered up her ship and took off into the atmosphere, watching the hazy Coruscant skyline turn dark and finally merge into the black of space. As she flew, she switched on an intergalactic channel.

“Authorities are anxious to talk to a young woman, who may be a witness, seen speaking to Ren before the shooting. The attempted assassination comes shortly after the successful murder of suspected mob boss Armitage Hux in a Tatooine marketplace earlier this week, in what the marshals are calling ‘a possible escalation of tension in the criminal underworld’.”

She turned off the station and continued to fly into the dark velvet expanse.

Seven days and seven nights Rey resided in her luxury chalet. Seven days and seven nights in which she was not once disturbed. 

The compound sat atop a low hill, an island surrounded by a sea of greenery. In the day, unfamiliar birds passed on their annual migration overhead. The nights were very dark and very quiet, and she could look out over the lights of Canto Bight, the casino city that never slept.

She’d never taken advantage of her money before and now luxuriated in gourmet meals cooked by professional hands and a private swimming pool just a few steps outside her bedroom. She bought a rich woman’s caftan at the only shop in the complex, an intricately embroidered blue and gold garment that put to shame her beige closet from Jakku. 

As time passed and no news came of Kylo Ren’s death, she grew introspective. 

Rey wondered who he would send to kill her. 

Seven days and seven nights went by undisturbed. On the eighth day a man came walking unhurriedly up the path to her chalet. He was not who she’d expected.

Tall, broad and well muscled, dressed all in black, a hitch in his step from the wound in his side that had yet to heal. A network of black stitches ran down his face, from his hairline to his jaw, bisecting his right eye. He knocked on the chalet door.

“Who is it?” Rey called from inside. Her intercom was on the fritz, the security cameras at her door revealing nothing.

“Maintenance,” the man said apologetically. “The hotel’s A.I. tells us your central networking cable isn’t working. San Hill—” he was the tall, gangly Muun manager “—told me to check.”

“Just a moment.” She opened the door a crack.

He was brutally fast. He shoved at the door with his shoulders, knocking her backwards, stepping inside the foyer. The blaster that had been in Rey’s hand went skittering across the floor and she reached for the one tucked into her boot. She raised it but he spun and slipped around the corner, deeper inside the living room. She fired her blaster but it didn’t catch him.

“I’ve come to talk,” Kylo said, sounding annoyed.

His deep voice did things to her insides. She realised she was happy he still lived. She was such bantha _poodoo_.

Rey didn’t say anything. She would be foolish to believe his words.

“I trusted you,” he said, and this garnered a reaction.

“Why wouldn’t you? I was yours- from the moment I took up a blaster, I was yours. Where could I go? I could never leave you.” She wished she sounded hard and angry, but instead the words came out small and sad.

He laughed bitterly. “You did leave me, Rey. You tried to kill me, remember?”

“I had no choice,” she said, tightening her grip on the trigger. She would not be lulled into a false sense of security by this man.

Having him there, alive and well, she realised anew how deeply she’d fallen for him. Foolishness. He was a monster incapable of emotions. 

She pressed against the wall, blaster raised, picturing Kylo on the other side. Was he on the move even now hoping to catch her by surprise?

“Why didn’t you come to me? You could have told me you wanted to leave this life.”

“Are you kidding- me come to you? All you’ve done is use me to do your dirty work. I couldn’t trust you to protect me. I’m a liability- a stray string that needs tying up. You would have had me killed for merely suggesting I couldn’t do this anymore.”

Was he waiting? Was he moving towards her? She edged closer to the corner.

“Rey… I would have helped you. All that time in the hospital and the only thing I wanted was to find you and make sure you were okay.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. I never do when I’m with you.”

“Is that right? Because I’m so insignificant and harmless, I’m sure.”

“No, sweetheart, because you’re the one good thing in my life.” 

Heat flushed her skin. How dare he? “Stop it. Don’t say such things.”

“I told you, I never lie to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have your palaces and girls, your glitzy life on Coruscant. You don’t need me.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but I certainly prefer you. When was the last time I was photographed coming out of a bar or cantina? When did you last see me with a whore? My relationship with you fulfilled something I didn’t know I needed, Rey.”

She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

“It means I had to ask myself some hard questions while lying in a medi-bed. I realised I’d rather be with you than remain in control of the First Order.”

She pushed herself off the wall, stepping quickly around the corner and levelling her blaster.

“Nice try,” Kylo said. His voice came from the terrace. He had slipped out a window. 

“Why didn’t you let me go?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Why start up with me at all?”

Even from the inside she heard him groan. “Actions have consequences, Rey. You pulled the trigger on Mitaka and conjured me up. In my world, it’s an eye for an eye always. I couldn’t allow his death to go unpunished.”

“That one’s on me,” she agreed, and then scowled, deliberately pacing the room. “I can’t believe I said that. It’s much easier blaming you.”

“You must have suspected there was more going on within the First Order than just my instructions.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s why I’ve been looking for you. I needed to reach you before he did.”

“What are you saying?” 

She stepped outside but all she saw was white furniture and flowering shrubs. A soft thump sounded behind her. Kylo had been on the roof and he dropped to the ground, sweeping his right leg in a wide arc, knocking her feet out from under her. He was on top of her in seconds, taking her blaster from her hand.

He smiled fondly. “Sweet Rey, my deadly little flower.”

“Kylo, who’s coming?” she asked, breathing hard.

“Emperor Palpatine.”

She stared at him. “That makes no sense. The holonews channels are full of reports about the empire dismantling criminal organisations.”

“And how do you think Palpatine does that?” Kylo asked, his tone cynical. “I’m his weapon, Rey. When he realised his generals were unable to deal with the threat of the Hutt Council and Red Dawn, he created First Order and put me in charge. We’ve been working for the Imperial government all along.”

“If that’s true then I’m a dead woman,” Rey muttered.

Kylo stood up, pulling her to her feet. “So you believe me?”

“If you were here to kill me, you would have done so already.” She reached up to trace the medi-droid’s work on his face. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he replied. “For a wake-up call it was a trifle rude, but it did the trick.”

“You have a plan.” It wasn’t a question. The Kylo Ren she knew was always working an angle.

“The Resistance,” he told her. “My father recently became involved with them. He says they can hide us, or…”

Rey began to laugh. “You, a rebel?” she said in disbelief.

“I’ve been called worse things,” he murmured. “And isn’t there poetic justice in using our skills to overthrow Palpatine, the very one we used to kill for?”

“Yes,” Rey agreed, “that does feel right.”

“So? What do you say?”

She was silent for a long time, staring across an oasis of green. “You used me for so long, Kylo. Why should I trust you now?”

He nodded in agreement. “Then don’t. Test me, Rey, try my words, watch my every step. I promise I’ll prove myself to you. One day, I hope to earn your confidence. Until then, let me help you avoid the Emperor and his underlings.”

She bit back a sigh. This man… he was impossible to deny.

“Very well.”

He grinned, as charming as a prince. “Oh, good. Now, where’s the bedroom in this place?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know…  
> \- Bantha _poodoo_ or bantha fodder is food eaten by banthas. It’s also a term of offense as it smells bad.


	6. Show Their Truth One Single Time

Their lovemaking was a revelation. Different, somehow. Driven by desperation and tangled emotions.

Kylo kissed her without mercy, his stubbled chin prickling her soft skin, consuming her lips and teeth and tongue. As seconds ticked by the sinuous slither of passion heated her body and slackened her muscles, and he lifted his head to look down into her dazed face.

He sank a hand into chestnut red hair, gripping it tight and tilting her head so he could slide his tongue into her ear. She shivered at his wet caress. “I love your hair, Rey. It’s slippery like silk.” He dropped hot kisses on her eyelids. “And I love your eyes- so clear and bright.” He suckled on her lower lip briefly. “And your mouth, sweetheart. Your mouth could make a grown man beg.”

Rey was quivering in his embrace, her breath coming in hot little pants, her skin flushed. Kylo was never usually this vocal, but he’d changed in the time since she last saw him… shot him. He trailed his full lips down the slope of her neck, his hands cupping the weight of firm breasts. “Your tits are perfect,” he groaned, sucking her nipples, tugging on pink buds until she whimpered, laving his tongue over the soft slope of flesh. “I could suckle you for hours.”

He knelt, chuckling as her hand gripped his hair tight enough to make him wince. He kissed his way down her flat stomach, sliding his tongue into her belly button. “I should get a bottle and fill this dimple with mead,” he sighed. “Turn your body into a shot glass. Don’t you think?”

He looked up but her eyes were closed, her teeth biting down on her lower lip. He was dangerously close to that part no other man had touched.

“And then there’s this,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to her damp quim, stroking the tiny patch of red curls on her satin mound with one finger. “This little purse of tender flesh.” Rey moaned as the vibrations of his words translated to her sensitive skin. “Hiding all sorts of delights.”

He leaned back and she clutched his hair again. “Patience, sweetheart,” he husked, sliding both his thumbs inside her, stroking wet flesh until she was raw and dripping.

“Kylo!” she cried, trying to move away from him.

“We’re not done,” he said quietly. “I haven’t finished showing you how much I love you.”

The words entered her mind like a bowcaster’s arrow. What? What had he said?

She wouldn’t stay still and he pushed her roughly onto the bed, grabbing one leg and wrapping it around his waist, lifting the other and hooking her ankle over his shoulder. He settled his hand on her belly, holding her in place and lowering his head between widespread thighs, fastening his mouth to her nether lips. Rey squealed, desperate for him but so very unsure all at the same time. His tongue slipped inside her, parting the hot little petals of her sheathe. He kissed and licked and suckled, the moment all about her.

She writhed like a dancer from a Hutt flesh palace as he ate her weeping slit, invading her velvet tunnel with his tongue and drawing her swollen clitoris into his mouth, tugging on that sensitive bundle of nerves until her back arched and her legs tightened. When she came, she was whimpering his name, flooding his mouth with even more nectar.

He lifted his head and watched her for a second. Golden skin was bathed in a light sweat, her little breasts quivering with every gasping breath she took, pink nipples erect and full lips bruised by his kisses. Perfect.

He returned to her honey pot, using his lips and tongue to scoop out all her sticky goodness. Her thighs clutched involuntarily at his head, her breathing ragged.

“Kylo?” she moaned.

He ignored her, continuing his kisses until he had teased another anguished orgasm from her lithe body. And another, and another. She sobbed through her final climax and he decided to change positions, turning her around so that she lay flat on her stomach.

She let him do as he pleased, already wrung out from his talented tongue. He lifted her hips so that she was on her knees, her head on the mattress and her pert buttocks swaying in the air. He got behind her and spread her thighs, reddened from his whiskers and wet from her own juices and his saliva.

He kissed her silken sex from behind, using the new angle to explore parts of her that he hadn’t yet reached, thrusting his tongue in and out of her wet, clinging sleeve. She moaned quietly as he softened his tongue, knowing she was nearly raw with his ministrations. His lips brushed and stroked her aching clit, slow and easy so that he brought her to release twice more until she was begging him to stop.

But Kylo was still hungry and he had Rey straddle his face, his lips drenched in her juices. She clung to the bed post as he gripped her smooth ass and guided her soaking wet quim onto his open mouth, giving her sweet sex one last exploration, his tongue buried deep and searching tenderly for her centre of pleasure.

Rey sobbed as he made her come again, her heart a wildly pounding thing in her chest and her body as pliant as dough. He ate her thoroughly, licking up every last drop of clear honey, only stopping when she was insensible.

At last he spread her out on slippery sheets, thrusting deep inside her body with his rock hard shaft, pounding her into the mattress. After he spilled his seed, he pulled her into his arms and stroked her quivering back.

They fell asleep immediately, sated and content.

“Kylo.” 

Rey awoke first, but he moved as soon as she spoke his name. They got dressed quickly. They could hear the thrum of engines as something mid-sized landed in the chalet’s front garden. She took both her blasters with her and he shouldered his weapon.

She pointed up and he nodded. Rey employed Kylo’s idea and they used the trellis at the back of the house to scramble onto the roof. From their vantage point, they watched four stormtroopers disembark from a ship. 

“So you told the truth,” she murmured under her breath. “First Order does belong to Palpatine.”

Kylo arched a brow at her. “I thought you believed me.”

“I said I believed you didn’t want to kill me.”

She would have sent more soldiers, but then the Emperor thought he was killing one lone shooter. He had no idea she had back-up, though she liked to think she could have dealt with the soldiers herself.

Employing hand signals, Rey and Kylo divided up the four targets. The troopers weren’t even trying to hide. They each took out a soldier simultaneously, and by then it was late for the other two to seek cover. The threat was eliminated in seconds.

For a while they sat atop the chalet, watching the sun set on Cantonica, admiring the blue and pink nebula visible in the night sky.

“We make a good team,” Rey said, painfully aware he’d told her he loved her. She wasn’t sure she was ready to say it back even though she knew it to be true. 

“I always thought so,” he agreed. 

“What now?”

“Now we run.”

She took a deep breath before her next words. “You can still go back to your old life. Pretend you found me the same time as the stormtroopers, say you were the only one to survive the shootout.”

“No, Rey. I’m with you for good.”

For the first time since she’d chosen to become a killer, Rey felt a weight roll of her shoulders. She hadn’t realised until now how lonely she’d been. 

Once she’d gathered up her few possessions, they boarded a Corellian YT-1300f light freighter. The old starship with its battered grey hull was totally different from the usual cutting edge flyers Kylo piloted. 

“Where did you get this from?”

He smiled unexpectedly. “The _Millennium Falcon_ belongs to my father. You’ll like him, I think. He’ll definitely like you.”

It occurred to her that Kylo had done more than just contact his father; they’d met and talked. Even before she’d agreed to it, he’d made sure they had an exit strategy. 

Rey settled into the co-pilot’s seat. Suddenly, her future stretched before her- full of danger, yes, but also sparkling with possibility. She glanced at the man beside her.

He caught the look as he powered up the _Falcon_. “Oh, by the way, you might as well start calling me Ben.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been reading a collection of short stories entitled _Invisible Blood_ edited by Maxim Jakubowski. (It contained a new Jack Reacher story which is why it caught my attention!) One particular tale has stayed with me, The Bell by Lavie Tidhar. The plot of my fanfic is drawn directly from it, so all credit goes to the original author, though the ending and Star Wars twists are my own. The original story is about a mother protecting her son and getting in over her head- well worth the read.
> 
> This fic taps into Rey’s dark side. I think she’d be the kind of person who’d walk down the wrong path because she hoped it would help or protect someone she loved.
> 
> My title comes from Jim Morrison who once said: “The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.” 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Comments are welcome and I thank you for your kindness. Xoxo


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